Ellen Purpus, PhD is the Assistant Vice President for Enterprise & Innovation at the University of Nevada Reno, responsible for expanding the university’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Ellen oversees the development of enhanced enterprise and commercialization services on campus including technology-transfer functions such as patents, licensing, agreements, startups, spin-offs, and corporate relations.
Ellen recently received a federal grant to help small businesses access federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants, which assist commercializing innovative technologies. She formed and is vice president and secretary of the Nevada Research & Technology Corp. (NVRIC), an independent nonprofit organization supporting UNR’s work commercializing its research innovations.
Ellen frequently speaks for AUTM and the Licensing Executives Society and has served on the faculty and planning committee for AUTM’s Essentials of Academic Licensing course. Ellen earned her PhD in Pathology and Cell Biology from Thomas Jefferson University and completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
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